U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials: For Ip's Tigers, Omaha trip means going out with a roar

OMAHA, Neb. -- The news hit like a ton of bricks dropped from a stealth bomber. No warning, just devastation.

In April 2010, the administration of Clemson University decided the swimming program was no longer financially viable. Twisting the knife, the phrasing read that it would take too large a capital infusion to remain competitive and would be phased out over two seasons, the 2011-12 campaign being the Tigers' 93rd and final.

Clemson joins the University of Maryland, whose bloated athletic budget and inability of certain sports' revenues to "protect their house" has led to the all-but-official disbandment of its program, on the sidelines of Atlantic Coast Conference swimming next year.

It was a stunning blow for a program that has produced Olympic medalists, the 2008 ACC Swimmer of the Year Michelle Parkhurst and 131 ACC individual and relay champions.

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"It was definitely a shock," Swarthmore native Chris Ip, Clemson's head coach for its final decade, said Saturday at U.S. Olympic Trials. "We didn't know anything about it. We had people working on funds for facilities and everything else. One day I just came in and sat down with my athletic director, and he said he felt he wanted to go in a different direction and cut the program."

That left Ip with a few logical options. The Strath Haven alumnus rallied support for fundraising, inspiring one of the university's largest one-year capital campaigns and furnishing endowed scholarships. He worked to rectify the specious and, according to multiple sources, grossly overestimated figures included in the committee report that triggered the recommendation for termination. He convinced as many swimmers as possible to stick it out, one last chance to "bring the ruckus."

Then he did something that defied the logic of the bean counters: He took his shorthanded squad and left a legacy befitting the team's history, one that epitomized the motto of the video compiled by swimmer Sarah Porri to memorialize the program, that "the ones who are most dangerous have nothing to lose."

It started in 2011, 10 months after the ax fell, when the quartet of Chris Dart, Mark Schindler, Seth Broster and Eric Bruck surprised everyone by winning the 200 medley relay at their penultimate ACC Championships, a meet the supposedly noncompetitive program led after Day 1.

Dart (200 back) and Bruck (50 free) won conference titles in 2011, and each repeated in 2012, adding titles in the 100 back and 100 free, respectively.

Ip's tight-knit contingent parlayed that success into each program's highest finish at NCAA's: 25th for the men and 30th for the women. It was a testament to the togetherness of those who remained and the job done by Ip, a former Suburban Swim Club and Team Foxcatcher swimmer.

"The athletes that stayed and the coaches that stayed, we were going to go through this together," Ip said. "We both made promises to each other that we'd take care of each other, and we went step by step. We wanted to show how competitive we were."

"Chris Ip has done a remarkable job dealing with the last couple of years," said former Tiger Meg Anderson Sunday after competing in the women's 50 free prelims at the CenturyLink Center. "Most people assumed that after the first year, everybody would give up. He really kept a positive attitude on that team, which I really appreciated because a lot of us made that choice not to transfer. Those last two years were special and so phenomenal. I can never thank him enough for that."

The momentum carried over to the Olympic Trials this week. Six swimmers --- Schindler, Bruck, Reinke, Broster, Anderson and Harry Foster --- are in Omaha flying the Tigers' flag.

"It was the strongest group, but the toughest situation," Ip said, comparing the classes for the three U.S. Olympic Trials for which he's been at Clemson. "These student-athletes have gone through so much, they've given so much in sacrifice, and at some point they've run out of gas fighting for the program and representing Clemson as well as they can. We've had some good swims and some average swims."

None of his swimmers qualified for semifinals, but their presence is a testament to the fortitude of those navigating the tumult. As their T-shirts this season read, "It's not about surviving the storm, but learning to dance in the rain."

"It was amazing. I seriously owe it all to him," Anderson said of Ip. "He kept us training so hard. To get so many of us to this level, it just shows that we didn't deserve to get cut."

The future for Ip is uncertain. Being an Olympic Trial year, coaching movement has been restrained this summer. His first order of business, though, was always solidifying the futures of his swimmers.

"We promised the parents and the student-athletes that we'd take care of them," Ip said. "We had an open-door policy. We wanted to put every single athlete in the best situation possible, give them the most opportunities as possible."

What is iron-clad, though, is Ip's coaching resume. A Division II All-American at East Stroudsburg, Ip traveled the coaching ranks with stops at his alma mater, Springfield College and the University of Delaware. He spent 13 seasons at Indian River State College (Fla.), winning 26 national titles for the NJCAA powerhouse, the most prolific streak in college swimming history. He also dabbled in international coaching, serving as the head man for the Jamaican national team and in other capacities for Poland and Venezuela.

The environment is rapidly evolving, thanks to factors outside of any coach's control, giving Ip pause before he ponders his next move.

"Swimming is my passion, is my career," Ip said. "I chose to go to the ACC because I thought it was one of the strongest swimming conferences with academics. To have two great programs with a very solid background with academics (drop swimming), it's kind of scary. The landscape is changing, and swimming and diving should be concerned as a sport in general."